Teetering on the Edge
Summary: She thought running away from her troubles would lessen the pain and so far it had kept it at bay with her friends surrounding her, but being best friends with Harry Potter always results in the impossible happening and she is not yet ready to face him.
This is just an idea that popped into my head today that wouldn't go away. Review and let me know if you want me to continue this story. I'm not sure if I should. This story will not detract anytime from The Clock is Ticking on the Light a new chapter for that is on its way - its NOT being abandoned!
Disclaimer: I don't own either Harry Potter or the Twilight series's, this is purely fan fiction
Chapter 1
Hermione stormed into the Great Hall and up to the head table where Harry sat in his seat as Headmaster.
"Harry James Potter! I can't believe you. You called me away from my potions, which I told you were delicate and now this month's wolfsbane is ruined. I don't have time to recreate it before the full moon next week. I hope you have an explanation ready for Remus!"
Harry glupped. Since her return from the visit with her Uncle in the States Hermione had been so touchy. If anything went wrong she whirled into a huge frenzy. All the students had become so use to her antics in the last 3 months that they now ignored their potions professor's daily rant at the Headmaster.
He understood what had happened. A vampire had broken her heart and she was pushing away her ache, but she was becoming short tempered and irrational. She had told him all the sordid details when she arrived through the floo into his and Ginny's living room in tears. It had taken two weeks to nurse her back from the shell she had become after the vampire unceremoniously dumped her the day after her birthday.
He was not about to let her wallow in misery after he returned to Hogwarts for the year. Slughorn had turned in his resignation at the end of the last year in order to return to retirement with as much crystallised pineapple as he could get his hands on. That had left the potions position free and Harry immediately offered it to his friend. He had her in mind from the start and if she hadn't come back herself he would have flooed over to Forks to ask her himself.
So Hermione had taken to the position with zeal. The students loved her even if they thought her a bit odd at times – she was a good teacher.
She had reached the head table and was standing directly in front of Harry, a hand on her cocked hip, demanding an answer. "Umm, sorry 'Mio-"
He was cut off by a disbelieving voice to his right where one of seven special guests was seated.
"Bella?"
Hermione's eyes snapped towards to all to familiar voice that she how only heard in her dreams. Her eyes widened in shocked recognition before swinging back to her best friend, anger sweeping her features.
"You had better have a good explanation" she snapped at him as she reached over and grasped his ear between her fingers and pulled him out of his chair and around the table, before dragging him down past house tables and out into the Entrance Hall.
The students were whispering as the rumour mill churned. Normally Harry would calm his screeching friend and she would sit down for her meal. Never had she yanked him out his chair and away from the Great Hall. Many were staring curiously at the seven pale figures that had come in with the Headmaster earlier. What had they done to cause that reaction? One of the younger ones that looked no older than seventeen was half out of his chair watching the Headmaster and potions professor flee the Great Hall.
Harry was dragged barely outside the Hall before Hermione slapped him across the face and yelled. "WHAT THE FUCK ARE THEY DOING HERE HARRY? YOU KNOW WHAT HE DID TO ME! I can't believe you would invite them into the school anywhere near me. I hate you! I hate you!...."
By the end of her rant she had broken down into tears and her brown eyes were shining with emotion she had been trying so hard to suppress. Harry pulled her into a hug, she tried to push him away but he held on, and finally she clung to her friend as though her life depended on it and wept into his shoulder.
"I'm so sorry Hermione, I didn't know these were your Cullen's, otherwise I never would have invited them here. Will you forgive me darling. Come with me Honey we need to get you down to bed." Harry lead his weeping Potions Mistress down towards the dungeons where Hermione had insisted she wanted the room.
Back in the Great Hall, the Cullen Coven had clearly heard the exchange in the Entrance Hall, even the parts that had fallen into silence for the rest of the Hall. Edward fell into his chair. "She hates me." He despaired with his face in his hands and his shouldered shaking with dry sobs.
"What I want to know," Piped up Rosalie in her haunty tones, "is why the Headmaster called her Hermione and what she is doing here in this wizarding world as though she belongs, while we have only just found out about it."
The Headmaster then made his re-entrance through a side door, halting once he had caught the Cullen's eyes and with a very sharp edge to his voice he called, just loud enough that they would discern it from the students around the Hall, "Carlisle could you please bring your Coven with me." He then turned and held the door open for the vampires as they came through.
The group of eight was silent as moved through the school towards the stone gargoyle guarding the spiralling staircase to Harry's office. Edward moved like a graceful robot as they ascended. He missed the moving staircases and the talking portraits that had the coven's attention he was too far into his own grief.
Once the group had entered and Harry was standing behind his desk, he turned. Where there had been warmth and open friendliness before stood in its place a chilly anger with eyes that projected a sense of a dangerous man to cross. It was in those eyes that they understood why this 23year old man was the Headmaster.
"I invited you to this school as I believed it would be benefital for the students here to meet a coven of vampires, especially individuals such as yourselves who don't feed on human blood. For the last 6 years I have been trying to combat prejudices wrought in this world. However it is of the utmost importance that I protect the people in this school and that includes Hermione."
He turned to Edward. "You have no idea the trauma you have caused on her psyche. You left her after she lost many people who were close to her, including her fiancée Ron. The wizarding world has been at peace for 6 years but it takes far longer than that to grieve the people we lost to secure that peace. Hermione assumed a new identity and travelled to Washington to try and resume her live. Like myself, the press hounded her for a story due to her involvement in the war and so to get some peace she moved to Forks to live with her Uncle Charlie under the guise of his daughter. You have no idea who Hermione Jean Granger is. You have caused her enough pain already and I wont see her fall back into the miserable wreck she was 4 months ago, she is struggling enough as it is. Therefore you all need to leave."
He finally seated himself looking exhausted.
Edward was up and pacing though. "I can't just leave her now I've found her again. I love her and these past four months have been torture without her."
"You left her Edward, how can you say you loved her?" Harry replied and lowered his occulumacy shields. He thought about the way his best friend had been when she came back to England from Washington. To Edward there was suddenly thoughts where previously it was blank and he cringed at the assault. At the desperate blankness infecting his Bella. He chocked.
"I was trying to keep her safe. We are a danger to her."
Harry gave a hollow laugh. "You are no danger to that girl. She is the most intelligent witch of her generation and she has fought and killed many vampires before and I have no doubts she could do it again."
Harry gave directions and information for the coven to find their way around the wizarding world as he lead them to the gates of Hogwarts. When they arrived the Headmaster turned to Edward and said, "Find out about Hermione, learn who she is and think about how you can make it up to her if you still want her after that. Otherwise, I warn you, do not venture near her with apologies and empty promises. She thought you were the one."
Alice hooked her arm around Edward's back and guided him away as he gazed longingly back at the castle, but Harry Potter stood at the gates, a guardian between his Bella, or Hermione, and himself.
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